GOODNESS

“When someone has been mean to you, why would you want to be good to them? You wouldn't want to. That's what makes it hard. You do it anyway. Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad.”  ― ‘The People of Sparks’, Jeanne DuPrau

"One of the tricks in life to produce something good"  ―  Teilhard de Chardin

"I do not want followers who are righteous, rather I want followers who are too busy doing good that they won’t have time to do bad."
 ― Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk

Tzu-kung asked: "Is there a single saying which one can act upon until the end of one's life?"
The Master replied: "Would it be reciprocity?  What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others."
      ― Analects of Confucius

In The Golden Seat, ‘Goodness’ is one of the three ‘legs’ of the seat: Beauty, Truth & Goodness (Plato’s natural theology).  One cannot truly understand one without the other.  We integrate goodness in our worldview to complete the picture:  Beauty and Goodness; Truth and Goodness.

Being good requires sincerity and authenticity – to accept the responsibility to self-audit your life.  Cannot have a good, insincere person (eg, a godless, communistic/fascist agenda masquerading behind an ‘ethics of care’ agenda).

Rather than using exposition, the following streamline bullet summary paints a grand landscape of goodness:

• “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:16)

• Images of “Goodness”:  A light in a dark world.  A strong, bright, shining rope that helps to rise others out of ignorance, guilt, fear, a troubling situation.

• Another word for Goodness – Compassion.

• The opposite of Goodness? – Corruption.

• If we give power to negativity it rampages.  If we give power to goodness, it grows.

• No goodness comes from being dark.  No goodness is being experienced.

• Examples of people who brought ‘Courageous Goodness’ to the world:  Christ (brought in Fortitude, Mercy, Loyalty), Martin Luther, Thomas Jefferson, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, Theodor Herzl, Galileo Galilei, Louis Armstrong, Walt Disney, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, Joan of Arc, Fredrick Douglass, Pope Innocent III, Jane Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Helen Keller, Elizabeth I, Melson Mandela, Catherine de Medicis, Kwame Nkrumah, Sylvia C. Browne. 

• Take well to courageous goodness.

• Goodness doesn’t really need to be explained, the Truth just resonates. 

• When writing a letter to yourself, white about the goodness of you.  Don’t write about the negative of you – the Universe does not care about that (eg, “writing about your sins”).

• The more things you can put into practice by word, by application, the more goodness surrounds you.

• Your good can never be disturbed unless, by your own state of mind, you believe that it can.

• The tests of hardships and suffering in life allow us to know the true meaning of goodness.

• “Be Kinder Than Necessary, For Everyone You Meet is Fighting Some Kind of Battle”

• “All the evil which exists is the evil of humankind, not evil of divine origin.  We must turn away from the duality of believing in two powers and anchor to the one unifying Power.  We must move into the consciousness of Reality.  Good is the only reality.  This is taking quite a leap, because the world speaks otherwise and even your own senses suggest that evil is real.  This step is easier if you realize that a negative experience is something that is happening only as an experience, but is not ultimate reality.”      
       ‘The Art of Being’,  Dr. Frank E. Richelieu, Science of Mind

• Six Power Nice Principles
“It’s nice to be important, but far more important to be nice” 
 1. Positive impressions are like seeds.
 2. Negative impressions are like germs.  Avoid giving the impression to others that they “don’t matter” (no matter their societal rank).
 3. You never know.  Don’t be nice to just the important people in your life; be nice to even strangers.
 4. People change.  Don’t assume you don’t have to be nice to someone if they have no power.
 5. Nice must be automatic.  Help others seen with the simple stuff; (eg, opening doors, helping carrying luggage).
 6. You will know.  When you have been rude or bad to others your soul mind will know.  You risk jeopardizing your belief in yourself.  Power of Nice    [goodness] is not about manically smiling & having everyone’s bidding—all the while calculating what you’ll get in return.  Not about being phony or manipulative.  It’s about valuing niceness (just like intelligence, beauty, talent).
   The Power of Nice, Linda Kaplan Thaler, Robin Koval

• Loving God is not a matter of doing outer things.  God is not looking for us to pretend to be good by doing good acts.

• God is love and goodness.

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
     ― Mother Teresa

  z